Derbyshire police team up for ‘Street Triage’ pilot scheme launch

Derbyshire police, working in partnership with Derbyshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust, has launched a ‘Street Triage’ pilot scheme aimed at improving the way people with a mental illness are treated in emergency situations.

Previously, when a person presented a risk of harming themselves or others, police officers could detain them under the Mental Health Act for their own safety or to protect others. They would then undergo an assessment by mental health professionals.

To improve the treatment of people experiencing a mental illness, Derbyshire police has teamed up with Derbyshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust to provide a new one year Street Triage pilot where officers on the beat believe someone needs immediate mental health support in Derby.

The pilot will be operational seven days a week from 4pm to midnight. Research has shown that during this time is when the majority of Section 136 detainments happen.

Mental health nurses will accompany police officers to incidents where it is suspected that someone is a risk to themselves or those around them due to their mental ill health. Upon arrival at the incident the nurse may carry out an assessment or hold a brief clinical conversation with the person to make a professional opinion regarding their current health needs. Advice will then be provided if an appropriate referral into the healthcare service is needed.

Nurses will also give telephone advice to police officers attending incidents to support officers’ decisions in referring people into the services they need.

Superintendent Kul Mahay has been involved in the implementation of the scheme. He said: “The triage project is about ensuring people with mental health issues are kept out of police custody and receive the right treatment and care.

“By working in partnership with health professionals, we will also be able to reduce demand on valuable police and A&E resources, making sure that officers and hospital staff are free to deal with other emergencies.”

Tracey Holtom, Service Line Manager for Forensic and Rehabilitation Services for Derbyshire Healthcare, said: “The police are very skilled but they are having to deal more and more with people with mental ill health. By being assessed by the nurse on call, these people can be directed to the most appropriate service for them – like a counselling service, GP, other mental health experts – and quickly.

“The new system means this could be done in their surroundings or places familiar to them, rather than the officer having to take them somewhere and then the assessment is done.”

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

Derbyshire Times provides news, events and sport features from the Chesterfield area. For the best up to date information relating to Chesterfield and the surrounding areas visit us at Derbyshire Times regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website Derbyshire Times requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.